THE BLUE BIRD is based on an allegorical fantasy by the Belgian poet & playwright Maurice Maeterlinck (PELLEAS & MELISANDE), a leading member of the Symbolist movement. This story of two children searching for the Blue Bird of Happiness made its debut on stage in 1908 to great success. It was a made into a famous silent film by Maurice Tourneur in 1918 before this 1940 version. It was disastrously remade as a Russian-American co-production in 1976 despite having Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Taylor & Cicely Tyson in the cast and being directed by George Cukor.
It’s generally well known that Shirley Temple was originally supposed to be Dorothy in THE WIZARD OF OZ. Despite the fact that OZ was not a success at the box office (its iconic status would come later on TV), Fox decided to pull out all the stops on this fantasy. What they didn’t do was make a typical Shirley Temple vehicle. There are no big musical numbers, she plays a selfish, unhappy little girl (much to her delight), and true to Maeterlinck, the story is deliberately abstract. What WAS changed is that in the original the roles are reversed. The brother is the leader, not the sister.
The principal roles are well cast with Gale Sondergaard an elegantly malevolent cat, Eddie Collins a remarkably faithful dog, and Nigel Bruce doing a variation on Dr Watson as Mr. Luxury. It was also nice to see Al Shean (of GALLAGHER & SHEAN fame and the Marx Brothers’ uncle) as the Grandfather. However, the film is not devoid of shortcomings. Cuts made after the original release have made some scenes uneven, the dialogue is sometimes trite & saccharine, and the sequence in the Kingdom of the Future (where all the children are white) reflect the Hollywood of 1940.
This new DVD version is certainly a nice improvement over the old VHS version. The color sequences are lovingly restored with an especially intense forest fire and a wonderful midnight sequence in the graveyard. Unfortunately it doesn’t restore footage that was cut after the initial release. English subtitles are always welcome but more special features would have been nice. While Shirley is fine, she’s not the reason I like THE BLUE BIRD. I like it for its atmospheric lighting, the messages it conveys, Alfred Newman’s music score and the way it captures a child’s sense of wonder.
The Capsule Critic 